Thursday, February 27, 2014

Parenting Month 40: Learning Chinese

This is shui

This month had a bit of excitement. T had to go in for a minor exploratory surgery. Fortunately, it had the best possible outcome (i.e. did not find what we were afraid of). He actually did very well considering this involved not eating the day before. He was entertained by being with parents and grandparents all week, which for him makes up for any discomforts.

The bigger picture has been language and socialization. We've noticed that among his daycare classmates, those who were verbal in Chinese at 2 all have stopped speaking Chinese somewhere between 3 and 4. We're hoping that does not happen with T!

One thing we have noticed is that T english is getting to be much richer than his Chinese. It is not just home and school, it is books and videos as well. His english books are more varied and have more constructions allowing for richer speech. And I can imagine that at this age, as they are just becoming expressive, it would be frustrating trying to speak in Chinese when your English is more capable. One thing we are trying is to find Chinese language media geared for pre-schoolers. Fun Fun Elmo recently came out with another set of episodes which we enjoy. We were amused when T was replaying some of the scenes, like one piece that involved a boy giving a tour of the house and pointing out everything. We think that a key point is that Chinese be something that he can do fun things with. And that will mean playing with toys, movies, comics, and friends.

He had his assessments at day care this week, and they told us is that he assesses ahead of his age, but he does not talk to people at school. Even looking at many of the items that are labeled as 'emergent', they are things he does at home, but he does not express them at day care. Basically, he is an introvert like his parents, the question is if he can learn to express what he knows when it comes time for assessments like this in the future.